Laurie Woolever traces her path from a small-town childhood to working at revered restaurants and food publications, alternately bolstered and overshadowed by two of the most powerful men in the business.
Intimate ... Fundamentally kind and generous ... She is a funny, acerbic and empathetic writer. One of the most refreshing aspects of Care and Feeding is that she doesn’t belabor the point that she was a hot mess ... After sobriety, the book tilts toward Quit Lit. Woolever practices gratitude and prayer. While this arc retroactively casts the hitherto delightfully neutral account of her behavior into a redemption narrative, nothing can rob the book of its deep sense of empathy. She feeds. She cares. And we read and care too.
Woolever may have been born to write, and lovers of memoirs, especially those by women based in the food world and other male-dominated zones, will be riveted by her candor, crisp reflections, and forcefully propulsive storytelling.
